Douglas-fir Blog

Sometime during my months here, I got the crazy idea of visiting the tiny nation of Luxembourg. Why? Perhaps I felt it was out of the way, a little country compact enough to see in a few days and on a small budget. I had read that the capital city, also called Luxembourg, is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on account of its old fortifications, portions of which remain to this day. I also read about the countryside and picturesque small towns in the North and East of the country. To be sure, Luxembourg doesn’t appear on most people’s lists of Top European Destinations. It’s mostly known as a financial center and corporate tax haven. But I decided I’d check it out. Justin, my friend from PSU, came up from Freiburg and joined me on the trip. (Check out Justin’s blog)



It didn’t take me long to realize that Luxembourg is one of Europe’s best kept secrets. I don’t think I’ve ever fallen in love with a city quite the way I did with Luxembourg. If I had to use just one word to describe it, “Charm” would do very well. Of course, it depends on what you like to do, but if you like to just spend a few days taking in a beautiful, historic city, Luxembourg is the place. The city itself is fairly compact; the entire city has only about 80,000 residents. The most striking feature of the city is its central area that seems to rise straight out of a narrow valley through which flows the Alzette. What I had read about the old fortifications, and the few pictures I’d seen, didn’t prepare me for the sheer enormousness of them. It is no wonder that the city has been known for centuries as the “Gibraltar of the North.” Atop these fortifications are many grand old buildings and churches; below them are quaint old houses. It all looks like a storybook city, something out of an illustration with knights and princesses. There are many bridges going over the river valley, and standing on one of them, I got the same sort of feeling I got when looking out over the Grand Canyon, despite the two being beyond comparison where size is concerned. Nonetheless, Luxembourg offers a wealth of impressive panoramas.



< The youth hostel we where we stayed in Luxembourg City is the red-and-white building at the base of the bridge. >


< And in America, we get excited about centennial celebrations! >

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, as a country, has a history going back to the 10th century. Hemmed in by Germany, France, and Belgium, Luxembourg’s culture has a mix of French and German elements. Despite a policy of neutrality at the start of both world wars, the country endured German occupation during both conflicts, and was caught in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge during the winter of 1944/45, suffering much destruction. But despite the many outside influences over the course of its history, Luxembourg has kept a strong national identity. An important symbol of this identity is the national language, Lëtzebuergesch, which is one of three official languages, alongside French and German. Lëtzebuergesch is a dialect of German that has been standardized. It is easy for German speakers to read; it looks like poorly written German. It is more difficult for German speakers to understand spoken Lëtzebuergesch. It has borrowed many words from French and has a more French sound than other German dialects of the region, though it is not a Romance language and not mutually intelligible with French. Luxembourg’s independent spirit is captured in its motto: Mir wëlle bleiwe wat mir sinn (We wish to remain what we are). To show the similarities between Lëtzebuergesch and German, compare the motto with its German translation: Wir wollen bleiben was wir sind.




The mix of French and German one encounters in Luxembourg can be bewildering. French is the main language of business and government, but especially toward the German border, where Germans regularly congregate to take advantage of Luxembourg’s lower sales tax, the sprinkling of German can be amusing. Even in Luxembourg City, we found examples that struck us as humorous, such as the case of a Pizza Hut and a McDonald’s across from each other in a square in the city center—Pizza Hut’s menu is in French, McDonald’s is in German. My French skills are weak, I never got very far speaking it before having to switch to German or English. Justin speaks French much better than I do.


< On this receipt from a grocery store near Wasserbillig, French is used to inform the customer about points earned (or that could have been earned) with a loyalty card, while German is used to thank the customer for visiting, and to give the business hours. >


The trip began on April 1, a Sunday. I had to leave at 6:30 in the morning, and naturally, I ended up staying awake all night before my departure. I had chosen the cheapest train connections possible, which meant a journey of eight hours as opposed to five. Three of those hours alone were spent in the S-Bahn between Mosbach and Homburg, which also passes through Heidelberg and Mannheim along the way. There were more than forty stops on this section of the route, averaging about five minutes apart. The rest of the trip was in regional trains, which don’t stop quite as often; nonetheless, the trains I took stopped in every town worth mentioning between Ludwigsburg and Luxembourg. I managed to get a good chunk of Lord of the Rings read before sheer fatigue rendered my brain useless for the task. I rolled into Luxembourg at about 2:30 in the afternoon. I will supplement my current report with verbatim quotations from the journal I kept during the trip:

[From April 1 Entry]
‘I arrived in Luxembourg Ville stressed, tired, hungry, and thirsty, but full of excitement, for this was a place I had longed to see for quite some time. And what a place! […] It was impressive enough to leave Justin and me gaping in astonishment. After Justin and I had eaten (we ate at Subway, and had quite the time ordering in French), we strolled in the pleasant evening air, enjoying the sights and the colors of spring, now more and more evident everywhere. After a leisurely evening, we returned to the youth hostel. I was glad I’d already made up my bed, because I was ready to drop into it!’

We spent the next day exploring the city some more. I took lots of pictures!


< Sightseeing >


< The Alzette River >


< The bridge from which the previous photo was taken >


< The beautiful Notre Dame cathedral in the center of the city >


< Me? A tourist? >


< Goofing around >


< From above… >


< …and below. >


The third day was much anticipated, for we planned to tour the Luxembourg countryside and spend the night in a lakeside village. But that wasn’t the half of it. Our mode of transportation just happened to be (cue the heavy metal music)…



[From April 3 Entry]
‘If I could sum up in one word the events of the day, it would be “Yeeeeeee-haw!” For today, for the first time in seven months, I got behind the wheel of a car. We got up early, had breakfast, and checked out. Then we walked to the car rental agency, which took us about forty minutes. There, we went through all the legal mumbo jumbo, which took another half-hour. We got Justin added on as a driver […] We got pictures of ourselves and our car, a cobalt blue Renault Clio, and, we thought, quite cool looking. Then, the two road warriors, neither of whom had driven in Europe yet, prepared to set off. I started. I was so nervous. I prayed aloud before we started off. Then, it was on to the street. The car handles very nicely. The five-speed manual tranny was as smooth as could be, much better than the one on the Toyota at home. We made for the freeway. The whole time I drove, I was so thankful to have Justin navigating […] We stopped at Wasserbillig first, got some groceries for lunch, then (by accident) crossed into Germany and drove to Echternach, where we had lunch by the river. From there, Justin drove to Diekirch […] From there, I drove to Clervaux, a beautiful town at the base of a steep-sided valley. From there, we drove to Wiltz with Justin at the wheel. […] From there, I drove the rest of the way to Lultzhausen, our youth hostel stop for the night. Justin didn’t want to do any more driving; we arrived at the youth hostel and were finished checking in by about six, with two good hours of daylight left. Thus, I set out in the car to drive around on my own; my journey took me through many little villages, and I crossed briefly into Belgium. For travelers used to following road maps of areas of the US, the distances and scale of my map of Luxembourg were decieving [sic]: everything took less time to reach than it appeared on the map, and after driving all over the country, we were still showing 7/8 tank of gas when we arrived at the hostel. More to write, but too tired.’


< On the freeway between Luxembourg City and Wasserbillig >


< Route-planning in Wasserbillig >


< Diekirch >


< Clervaux >


< On the road between Clervaux and Wiltz >


< Esch-sur-Sûre >


< View of the Lac de la Haute-Sûre at sunset, Lultzhausen >


< The morning of April 4, preparing to leave Lultzhausen >


< Tanking up in Steinfort, just before returning the car. I estimate we burned a little over 4 gallons of diesel on our entire road trip. Unfortunately, I forgot to mark down the odometer reading at the beginning; it would have been interesting to know how far we drove. We managed to see a lot of the country, though. When I was initially planning the Luxembourg trip, I expected the fuel bill to be more than twice as much as it was. Overall, I was very impressed with our car: fuel-efficient, comfortable, fun to drive, good-looking—It wasn’t long before I was wishing I owned one. >


On our fourth day, after returning our rental in the morning, Justin and I parted ways, he returning to Freiburg. I stayed a few more hours in Luxembourg, soaking in the sights one last time. Then, it was time to go home.

The weekend after my big Berlin trip, I journeyed to the city of Nürnberg to see my friend Hans-Martin, whom I had not seen for over three and a half years. I came to know Hans-Martin in the spring of 2003, when he, along with another teacher, led a group of Gymnasium students on an exchange program to Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Oregon, where I was learning German. (A Gymnasium is roughly equivalent to an American high school. It is one of three types of schools in Germany that would fall under our term “high school;” the Gymnasium is required for students going on to a university.) My family and I hosted Hans-Martin during his stay in the Portland area. It was a delightful time, and we all greatly enjoyed getting to know him. Hans-Martin invited me to come to Germany and see his school and stay at his place, which I did that same summer. I was there three weeks, and I had a wonderful time. It was the first time I’d ever been to Europe. My impression of Germany and German life was overwhelmingly positive. My German wasn’t so good then, but I came back motivated to learn, which I did.


Some weeks before my Berlin trip, I gave Hans-Martin a surprise phone call. He was happy to hear from me, and invited me to visit him again. I came over the weekend of the 17th and 18th of March. It was great to see my friend again, and Nürnberg was just as beautiful as I’d remembered it. I’d kept countless crystal clear memories of my first trip, and over the course of my latest trip, many of these memories came rushing back, right down to what I felt and thought at the time. I found that I remembered even the nearby Marktkauf grocery store with perfect clarity! Hans-Martin took me to the Landbierparadies restaurant, which we had gone to on the first trip. It was every bit as good as I remembered. Hans-Martin’s girlfriend, Suzanne, joined us on Saturday afternoon and came with us to the Landbierparadies. While I was in town, I also visited the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, a museum dedicated to Germanic history and culture from prehistoric times to the present day. On Sunday, Hans-Martin took me to, among other places, the Nürnberg Castle and the Albrecht Dürer house.

One thing that struck both of us while I was in Nürnberg was how much my German had improved since my last visit. Then, I tried to practice some German, but for actual communication, we had to default to English. This time around, we spoke German the whole time, except when I told Hans-Martin and Suzanne a joke in English. It made the reunion all the better to be able to communicate in the language I could only comprehend in snatches on my first trip to Germany.



< Hans-Martin, Suzanne and I in the Landbierparadies. >


< Hans-Martin and Suzanne >


< At the Nürnberg Castle >


< By the Albrecht Dürer house. The statue is a whimsical version of a well-known painting of Dürer’s. >


< Hans-Martin’s neighborhood as seen from his kitchen. The area has been built up a fair amount since I was there the first time. >

Almost six weeks ago on Easter Sunday, and if I remember correctly, less than an hour after I posted my “Berlin Report,” something happened to my laptop. I was just about to use Skype to call home, when all of a sudden the application froze. Within a minute, everything else had frozen, too. I was annoyed, but guessed that the problem could be resolved by restarting. But instead of booting up properly, after powering up, the screen went grey, and I could hear a sound like a whirr-click, whirr-click coming from the general area of the hard drive. My fears were confirmed when I brought my laptop to a service center in Stuttgart. The hard drive had failed.

Wikipedia’s article on the “click of death” seems to describe the experience I had:


“On non-Zip systems (usually a hard disk), the click of death refers to a similar phenomenon; when a hard disk has a hard error or servomechanism failure, the head actuator will buzz and click as the drive tries to recover from the error. Since the media is not removable on these drives, the defect is almost always due to physical abuse or a manufacturing error.”


Unfortunately, I had not backed up much of my data since coming to Germany, and the chances of recovering the data were slim, I was told. Nonetheless, I agreed to pay 60 Euros (about $80) to have the service people try to recover the data. I would pay the amount whether they recovered anything or not. Thankfully, the replacement of the drive was under warranty, even at a service center in Germany.

My prayers were answered when I got a phone call informing me that a partial backup had been managed, about a quarter of the data that had been on the drive. Later, when I was able to view the data, I found that almost everything of importance had been saved, including a diary I had kept, and my most recent photos.

I ended up having to re-install the system and all applications I had used. I completely lost my huge iTunes music library; however, most of it was backed up. I lost a few other files of minor import. The drive containing the backup of my iTunes library is in Portland, and I have decided not to risk having it mailed over here. I have mostly turned to internet radio as a source of music to listen to.

I feel I have come out of the experience blessed, and with a reminder to keep a proper perspective on what is really important in life. Even if I didn’t recover so much as a byte, I thought before I knew the outcome, I would still be greatly blessed.

I was planning to post blog entries about my other trips within days of my Berlin post. Obviously this has not happened, and I’m now very behind in on my blog. Although I’ve had a working computer for several weeks now, I’ve been busy with many things. Classes for the summer semester started on April 16. I’ve been busy with coursework ever since. I will try to fill the gaps of the last month within the next few days.


< My Easter Sunday 2007 portrait, taken just hours before my hard drive crashed. >